1st Connecticut Regiment (1775)

The regiment consisted of ten companies of volunteers from New Haven and Litchfield counties of the state of Connecticut.

According to the national archives, enclosed below is a letter from the 1st Connecticut Regiment to General Washington dated 31 March 1778.

; General and Commander in Chief of the Armies of the United States of America: The Petition of the commissioned Officers of the first Connecticut Regiment, Humbly Sheweth, That Your Petitioners, since they took the field the last Campaign to the present time, have been destitute of a chief Colonel to the Regimt—Our Lieut: Colonel, daily expecting some other gentleman would be put over him to command the Regiment, did not exert himself for the honor & benefit of the same, as he probably would have done had his situation been otherwise.

The necessary inconveniences then, we have laboured under on this account, are too obvious to be particularis'd to Your Excellency: To avoid which, in future, and that the regiment may make that respectable & martial appearance which was intended by the first worthy Colonel of it;1 Your Petitioners humbly beg leave to request of your Excellency that a Colonel be appointed to the said regiment before the opening of the approaching campaign.

Colonel Sherman; (whose accomplishments as an Officer, & a Gentleman, we highly vallue,) appointed to the command of said regiment,2 which we humbly conceive would greatly add to the peace & honour of the Same; and Your Petitioners, as in duty bound shall ever pray.

Lt. Col. Isaac Sherman did not get this appointment, which went instead to Lt. Col. Josiah Starr, whose commission as colonel evidently was backdated to May 1777.

[2] Immediately following the Battle at Lexington and Concord, Connecticut sent more than 3,700 men to help in the war against Great Britain.